Thursday, April 30, 2009

We guess the rainy day is now.Metro decided to tap a $13 million rainy day fund to close its budget gap, and while there will be some "service adjustments," there aren't as many as originally floated.Arlington County’s ART bus service also will take over operating the 22B and 24P routes. Here's the rest.

"Under the new budget plan, four routes would be eliminated, one line would be restructured, one route would gain service and fares would increase on three routes. Metro riders who board the J7, J9 I-270 Express buses in Montgomery County and the W19 Indian Head Express in Prince George’s County would pay the $3.10 cash express fare or $3 with a SmarTrip card. Riders have been paying the regular $1.25 SmarTrip card fare or $1.35 cash fare for express service. The L7 (Connecticut Ave to Maryland line) routewould be eliminated but extra buses would be added to the L8 route. The C7, C9 (Greenbelt to Glenmont) and some off-peak service on the Z2 (Colesville to Ashton) routes also would be eliminated. The 21 A, B, C, D and F (Landmark-Pentagon) routes would be consolidated into a single route."

We think this sheds a lot of light on why Metro has so many breakdowns.According to an April 2009 study released by the Federal Transit Administration, more than one-third of the mass transit services' assets in Boston, NY/NJ, Philly, DC, Chicago and San Fran are “either in marginal or poor condition, indicating that these assets are near or have already exceeded their expected useful life.”It would take $50 billion to bring them all back into good repair, the report said.The study also found that “all seven agencies maintain comprehensive asset inventories for capital planning purposes, other asset management practices are lacking. For example, only 1 of 7 uses decision support tools to help conduct “what if” analysis; only 2 of 7 use a rigorous process to help rank and prioritize their investment needs; and only 3 of 7 have committed to conducting comprehensive asset condition assessments on an ongoing basis.”Yikes.If you really geek out on this stuff, the very dense report is available here.

Metro does not see the current amount of delays as requiring any kind of crisis response program. Makes you wonder where they've been for the past three days.Instead, WMATA relies on "preventative maintenance," wrote a spokesman for WMATA in an email exchange.“We never stop looking for ways to improve service and to decrease disruptions,” they wrote.Every rail car is inspected daily for wear and tear, they wrote, adding that any areas of concern are repaired immediately. More detailed inspections are also performed on a regular basis, they wrote. Metro also inspects the tracks regularly and performs track maintenance nearly every weekend, according to the spokesman.“Not all disruptions are attributable to car performance,” they wrote. “Many offloads can be attributed to door problems, and I think we all know that many door problems are caused by people who try to hold them open.”The spokesman said that the percentage of trains per day that need to be offloaded is about half a percent and that of all the “door movements” per day, 99.999 percent are successful.“Of course, the important train is the one you’re on at the time,” they said. “If that train is running one of the .5 percent of the trips not completed, it inconveniences as many as 1,000 people. It is a big deal, to you and to us.”WMATA makes some good points. We tend to remember the suck-o-ramas, not the times when Metro worked.And we've seen with our own eyes the impatient a-hole who pried the door open rather than wait another few minutes for the next train. We wonder, though, how often it's the passengers' fault. We asked, and WMATA doesn't keep data on that. Perhaps they should.Also, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, DC doesn't have a monopoly of jerks who pry open train doors. We've seen it in other cities, and while it may be amusing to see, it doesn't cause the trains to go out of service. We think WMATA needs to look into some more robust doors.Given the recent spate of "switch" issues, perhaps WMATA could review it's track inspection procedures. But just don't use any of that track equipment the derails, please.We also don't think WMATA is taking into account the ripple effects of door problems and breakdowns. We think 1,000 is a low estimate for the number of people affected by a rush hour breakdown. And if our Twittercaps are any indication, people react quite viscerally to a Metro malfunction.WMATA doesn't seem to think it has an image problem, and this is disheartening. We fear that because of Metro's performance, more people will think like this:@jiwest Why oh why is the Orange line so sporadic? I think I've had quite enough of no-car city life, thank you very much.More cars is exactly what we don't need.More on doors to come.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

"Disruption at Foggy Bottom-GWU. Expect delays to New Carrollton and Largo Town Center due to unscheduled track maintenance. Trains are traveling at a reduced speed through Foggy Bottom station." (via WMATA)

@VaENew I would STRONGLY recommend you avoid the orange/blue line toward largo/new carrellton if you can, its barely moving

Take heart Metro riders. We're not the only ones suffering with poorly run mass transit. We guess the U.S. just doesn't do public transport well. Here are some tweets from yesterday from around the country. Eerily familiar, isn't it?

From NYC:Hate the bus f*ck MTA

NYC's MTA should spend more money on fixing subway stations, than on presentations abut rats: http://bit.ly/JfElJ

We need YOU!

Our best posts are from you!

Over 700,000 of you take Metro every day. Whether it's a simple tweet from the front lines, a funny photo or story or something more substantial, tell us. Got an idea of something we should do? Let us know. More than half of this blog has been written by riders just like you.